Falling in Love

I sort of fell in love with Cambridge when I was there. It is a beautiful city, with a lot of different environments. The areas around the centre have their terraced houses, the centre has its shopping streets and colleges, and there are tourists and students everywhere.



One of the things that really struck me were the bicycles everywhere. Almost as many as we have here, but mainly of a different kind. More helmets, nowhere to place your bag. And they really are all over the place. Cyclists in Amsterdam may create chaos, it's a different kind of chaos in Cambridge. Here cyclists have their own lanes, and very few use pavements or footpaths, but that is different in Cambridge, bicycles are everywhere. At some point I felt the way some tourists must feel in Amsterdam, you feel like you're always in the way of a cyclist. And they come from the wrong side too...



It's the colleges that provide a kind of peace and quiet within the city. The green, wide open space at King's COllege, the intimacy at Gonville and Caius, the silence within Magdalen early in the morning. Most of the colleges have their own chapel, really good places for a little peace. I ended up attending evensong at the King's College Chapel, beautifully sung and very restful.



There are a lot of interesting small restaurants as well, and you don't end up going to all the usual places. Some are to a great extent aimed at tourists, but it doesn't really feel that way. Not a bad place for a vegetarian.



And then there is the range of museums. Art at the huge Fitzwilliam, fossils at the Sedgwick, Polar history at the Scott Polar Research Institute, and there were a lot more I simply didn't have time for. This is the kind of city where three days isn't really enough and you wish you had a lot more time to take things in. I guess I have a few reasons for going back.